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A congressional committee is demanding answers from the General Services Administration after it missed a deadline to present a new plan for the FBI's headquarters.
The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works had given the agency a 60-day extension from its original Nov. 30 deadline to put forward a new plan after canceling the search in July.
“It is unacceptable that the GSA has failed to meet the deadline that they committed to,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the committee chairman, said in a statement. “Just last week, the head of the agency assured me that I would receive a specific plan for the FBI headquarters project on time. The men and women of the FBI, who keep America safe, require an office building that meets their needs. It’s past time for the GSA to provide the committee with some real answers.”
The GSA had originally narrowed its search to three suburban sites in Greenbelt and Landover, Maryland, and Springfield, Virginia. But the Washington Business Journal reports the agency is now leaning toward staying in place at the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Such a move would frustrate both Maryland and Virginia, because they would lose the potential to house the $2B campus, and the District, because it would not be able to redevelop the prime Pennsylvania Avenue site to activate the space and bring in commercial tax revenue.
Cushman & Wakefield Vice Chairman Darian LeBlanc, a top government services broker, said at the time of the cancellation he thought it was the right move and suggested the GSA consider keeping the FBI in the District. He now says he would not be surprised to see the GSA decide to keep the FBI in the Hoover Building.
"None of the sites the GSA was considering were ideal," LeBlanc said. "There was always a question whether it was appropriate to take the premier law enforcement apparatus out of the capital city. When you combine those, I think it's only logical it would point back to try to keep the FBI in the city and there on Pennsylvania Avenue."
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